The Day of Atonement
by girl undone
Summary: Commander Rachel Shepard comes to terms with her resurrection and tries to find it within herself to forgive Cerberus and accept her new life whilst observing Yom Kippur aboard the Normandy. Garrus and Joker also appear. Warning: Contains religious themes


A/N: I have a lot of trepidations about posting this story because of the subject matter. If Judaism or any other religion and crises of faith is not something you as a reader want to see, please do not read further than this.

Many thanks to my wonderful beta, EternityEmbracer, for being so supportive, and to Will We Conquer, who wanted to see this story. Especial thanks to all my readers who read, review, and support this particular Commander Shepard. Thank you all so much.

Explanation of terms and traditions used in this story:

_Yarmulke:_ A skullcap worn by men in synagogues.

_Tallis:_ A prayer shawl worn by men (and women in some Reform circles and other sects) after their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs.

_Erev: _Eve. Normally used in conjunction with the day before the holiday. The Jewish calendar is lunar, so each day begins at sunset and ends the following sunset.

_Yom Kippur_: The Jewish Day of Atonement. Observed by fasting, reviewing the past year and asking forgiveness of those you might have hurt, and making a clean slate for new Jewish year. As Rachel is Reform, she can drink liquids during the fast and even eat if she feels sick or dizzy.

_Reform: _A sect of Judaism that interprets the Torah (What is considered the Old Testament in the Bible) in loose, modern terms. Holidays are observed, but other beliefs such as men covering their heads at all times or keeping Kosher are seen as not necessary and are not generally followed.

_High Holy Day_s: The ten days between _Rosh Hashanah_, the Jewish new year, and _Yom Kippur_.

_Yahrzeit candles_: Memorial candles for the dead.

_Goy: _Non-Jewish person_._

_Mensch: _A good guy.

_Mourner's Kaddish_: The Prayer of the Dead. Said by those who have lost a close relative, usually a parent or child. In this case, I decided to include the original crew that died with the _Normandy_. Not traditional, but neither is my Shepard, or this take on Yom Kippur.

_Bat Mitzvah_: A Jewish girl's coming-of-age ceremony, held around the girl's 13th birthday.

It's traditional to face toward Jerusalem when praying.

* * *

In space, Commander Rachel Shepard reflected, you had to make due with what you had, or, in this case, had not.

She had on her desk three cups of dodgy origin that would glow once activated. It wasn't like there was a huge demand for candles in space. Still, the idea of using novelty shot glasses as _yahrzeit_ candles was unsettling, to say the least.

She knew, long ago, traditionally one wasn't supposed to use electronics, but she was raised Reform and it was never an issue. She remembered how excited she would be to wear her new dress for the High Holy Days, sometimes unbearably hot, sometimes freezing cold in the unpredictable early autumn weather of New York City. How her mother would let her wear her great-grandmother's pendant of a delicate filigree Star of David, promising it would be hers when she was old enough. Rachel had half-hoped to find it amidst the ruins of the original _Normandy_ on Alchera.

She shook her head, trying to erase images of her six, seven, eight-year-old self running ahead of her parents to synagogue, so eager to get there first. How she would fall asleep against her father as the services drew on. How pretty her mother looked, so solemn, as she stood to recite the Mourner's _Kaddish_ along with her father in his white silk _yarmulke_ and _tallis_ and the others in the congregation who had lost a parent or a child.

"Commander," Joker's voice in her aural implant broke through her memories. "It's sunset, Eastern Daylight Time, like you asked."

She sighed, looking away from the would-be candles on her desk. "Thanks Jeff. Can you tell me what direction would be east if we on Earth right now? Uh, east if I were standing in the middle of the city."

"Um, lemme check..." Joker stalled, going silent. He didn't like not knowing the answer to something, but more so he was uncomfortable. He remembered her coming up to his chair right after she returned from Alchera, the tight muscles in her face and the hard line to her jaw stopping him from speaking as she leaned on the console beside him. He knew she was going to ask about her memorial service.

"_Did they respect my wishes?"_

_He looked away, glad his scruffy beard and hat could hide the rising shame colouring his face. "What do you mean, Commander?"_

_Her voice was flinty, but he heard the quiet plea break through."Jeff, please."_

"_It was non-denominational. The Alliance felt it was better for your image." The words tasted like saw in his mouth._

"_Bullshit," she spat, gripping the console hard behind her. "They were afraid. G-d forbid they Saviour of the Citadel was crazy enough to believe in something beyond the Alliance." She sneered, "Worse yet, she's Jewish! Like it isn't even __enough__ to have entirely new races __to hate__, we still have to hate each other." She let out an exasperated sigh, "Even in my death they couldn't follow my will." She paused and let out an awful laugh. "My _will_."_

_Joker cringed at the sound. He looked up, almost pleadingly, but her eyes were flickering furiously. "I spoke up, Rach. I swear. Liara did too. I didn't know if it was the right thing to do, to say that prayer myself."_

_Her face softened. "You were already grounded, Jeff. Were you purposely trying to space your career?" He winced again as she alluded to her own death so carelessly, but she continued, sounding curious, "And Liara? She-?"_

_Joker shot back angrily, "You saved my life! What was I supposed to do? Sit there while they disrespected your beliefs? They couldn't even get a rabbi for you. Hell, they held a fucking wake for you, Rach! And, yeah, Liara spoke up too. Maybe because she wasn't Alliance, I don't know. But she knew it was important to you." He didn't mention how he had always found Liara's intense interest in the Commander to be creepy. _

"_A wake," she echoed in disbelief. "They held a fucking _wake._"_

_Joker looked down at his hands. "I didn't go. Neither did Garrus. He was as angry with them as I was. He asked.." the pilot swallowed, "He asked Alenko why he didn't speak up with us."_

_That awful laugh again before she spoke."He's an Alliance lap dog and the only god he ever worshipped was the false idol of Commander Shepard."_

_Joker forced himself to look up at her. Her eyes were burning, but no longer with anger. He was about to speak, but she pulled herself up from the console and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks, Jeff. I needed to know. At least the people who knew _me_ cared enough to try."_

_He wanted to apologise again, but he was afraid she'd wave it off once more. He spoke without thinking, which is why his words were sincere and not twinged with sarcasm, "You're like my damned sister, Rach. I wish I had done more."_

_She smiled wanly and gave his cap a half-hearted tug. "You did do more. You tried. You cared."_

Joker never understood how she held her beliefs after all that happened. Dying, being brought back to life without a say in the matter, only to be rushed head-long into another suicide mission, but he never dared to ask. And this particular day, he couldn't tease her just now for her habit of referring to her birthplace as 'the city', as though it were the only city in the galaxy (though it likely was in her opinion), or even try to cheer her up. From sunset to next sunset according to Manhattan's time, the Commander would be herself, but withdrawn and rather melancholy. Not because her faith asked her to be, but because the Commander took this day seriously; to atone, to remember, to resolve to be a better person. It was the one day she let herself be utterly human. No Commander Shepard peaceably breaking up petty arguments. No Rachel Shepard mocking the pilot as he cracked a joke. He knew she would even be contrite to Miranda, though it wouldn't last very long.

He finally responded. "Commander, I'm sorry, but I have to hand this one over to EDI."

She replied quietly, "It's all right. Thanks again, Jeff."

Joker's words were, for once, serious, "Thanks what I'm here for, Rach."

She smiled, though he couldn't see it. "You'd only call me that today when you know you're safe."

Joker laughed, only because it was true. "I'm very, very fragile," he claimed innocently.

"Jeff, I know I adore you, but I'm cutting the comm for the rest of the night. Try not to brag about my undying platonic affections for you."

"What, why not? It's going to be boring in the mess tonight without you!"

She shook her head, though he couldn't see it. "Play nice. I'm going silent," and she cut her comm link.

EDI's blue orb appeared in her room. "Commander, I can only give you the exact direction to face Earth. As we and the planet are both moving at different rates, I can only give a moderate approximation of where 'east of Manhattan' would be."

Rachel Shepard resisted the urge to snipe at EDI. She had hoped, what with an AI on board, this_ Erev Yom Kippur_ she could actually face toward Jerusalem this year. "It's all right, EDI. Just tell me which direction Earth is in."

EDI replied, "41.7 degrees to your left."

Rachel closed her eyes, fighting off the urge to yell at the AI. She turned, counting silently to herself in her best estimate of what was slightly off 45 degrees, until she was facing the wall between the fish tank and where she stored her armour. She could not withhold a silent curse to herself. She had to say _Kaddish_ facing the one area of her quarters where...

Well, let's just say she was thankful she didn't need to atone for those talon marks. Obviously, G-d had a sense of humour. "You ought to," she said aloud. "This was a rough year. We met, if I recall."

EDI's voice replied, "I do not understand, Commander."

Shepard rubbed her eyes, sighing. "Please log me out, EDI."

"Logging you out, Shepard." The blue orb disappeared.

Rachel Shepard stood straighter, reaching for the first shot glass. She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mommy," she whispered for the lack of a proper candle. Activating it so it glowed a garish purple, she murmured her mother's name in Hebrew, and then the_ Mourner's_ _Kaddish_. She settled it down carefully and picked up the next one, repeating her apology to her father and reciting the prayer in his name. She tried to smile as she saw the glass glowed blue. "Well, it was your favourite colour, Daddy." She thought, somewhere, he'd laugh about the glowing novelty shot glasses and make her mother laugh about it, too. "I miss you both so much. I want you to know that I'm happy now. I really am. I know he's a _goy_, but you can't hold it against him. He isn't human, either. But you'd like him. I know you would. He's really a _mensch. _I wish... you know what I wish. I love you both so much."

She hastily scrubbed a hand over her eyes and took a deep breath. Now was not the day to wish she was with them; to curse Cerberus, The Illusive Man, Miranda. Today was the day to be thankful she was alive, somehow, and to remember those who were not, and forgive those who brought her, however unwillingly, back to life.

Finally, she reached for the last glass and the OSD with the names of the crew lost on the original _Normandy. S_he didn't need to be reminded to include Pressly and Williams. The glass flickered red as she read their names in English, or their native tongue if she knew it. She held it a moment, placing the OSD down. "I know you gave your lives to our cause. I promise you I will not stop until the Reapers are defeated once and for all. If the angel of death claims me again, you will not have died in vain. Everybody on this ship- human, turian, krogan, asari, drell- is as determined as me to stop them. The Alliance knows. The Council knows. I can't claim that they will do anything now, but I swear I will. The Collectors Base is gone, but we pulled as much data as we could before it blew. I swear, your deaths were not in vain." Firmly, she placed the glass down beside the other two. "I will see to that."

* * *

She didn't know how long she sat, curled up in her desk chair, watching those gaudy shot glasses flicker and glow. Her mind went over detail after excruciating detail of each event that had transpired since waking up to Miranda's voice and hacked mechs in Project Lazarus' lab. Every shot she fired, every person she rescued; the bargain she silently made with as she knelt in pooling blue blood in that fortified flat on Omega...

_If You let him live, I swear, I promise, I won't throw this life away. Please, oh G-d, please, I'll tell him everything, I'll do anything! Just not him, too! Please!_

She pondered on her bargain, remembering the ride back from the Orbital Lounge on the Citadel in the rapid transit cab with Garrus and Thane after the former finally let Sidonis turn himself in to C-Sec. He said he didn't want to talk to about it, but then after a few moments of heated silence, he suddenly turned to her with a furious growl.

"_What were you thinking, walking into my sights like that? I could have blown your head off!"_

_She had shrugged, as though it was of little consequence. "You didn't."_

_His gloved fist slammed into his armoured thigh. "Dammit, Shepard! What if I was pulling the trigger before you spoke? What if it misfired?"_

_Again, she shrugged. "You didn't. It didn't."_

_He grabbed her arm so she would look at him, dimly surprised somewhere in his thoughts that she didn't throw him off. "I could have killed you!"_

_She looked at him unflinchingly, meeting his gaze. "I trust you."_

_The observant drell assassin understood the heavy meaning behind her simple statement. It was then, he realised, this siha would not be _his_ siha. But the turian sniper, who always seemed to watch her every move, to listen to her every sound, didn't seem to hear it. He growled, letting go of her arm. "When are you going to stop chasing after death, Shepard?"_

_She didn't respond._

The door to her quarters hissed open and she twisted around in the desk chair to see the turian whose life she begged for in exchange for accepting her own new one.

Garrus Vakarian's mandibles drew in with concern. Her eyes and nose were red, but he chose not to state the obvious. Instead, he crossed the small space to put the bottle of water he was holding next to her personal terminal and carefully ran a taloned hand through her hair. "I know you can drink that."

Rachel scrubbed a hand over her face and tilted her head up to him, trying to smile through her stiff cheeks. "Yeah?"

He let his hand fall to her shoulder, giving it a comforting, if gentle squeeze. "You're not the only one who can run searches on the extranet. You're Reform. You could eat, too, if you were a child or sick or pregnant or-"

She almost laughed, reaching for the bottle and removing the seal. "All right, all right. I'm drinking it!" She took a swig of water and swallowed, then opened her mouth wide. "See? All gone."

Garrus' mandibles twitched. "Pyjack," he rumbled fondly.

She leaned her head so she could rub her cheek against his hand on her shoulder. She said nothing, but stared at the shot glasses-cum- _yahrzeit_ candles.

Garrus stroked her head with his free hand, thinking of the other searches he ran. The news vid the Alliance and Council banned from the extranet, but managed to pop up every so often of a young Rachel Shepard, aged thirteen, in a singed mint green dress with long, matted curls, being led away by medics, tears streaming down her sooty face. The burnt corpses, probably her parents among them, flickering into view as the reporter explained how the air car bombing, led by an extremist anti-religion group, interrupted services that Saturday morning, along with a young girl's Bat Miztvah – a coming-of-age ceremony, the reporter explained. The camera drone swept back to her, indicating the young Shepard was the girl in question. The vid went on to state the bombing decimated the half of the historical building in Manhattan within seconds. The only survivors had been on a dais in the back. The stained glass that hung there was shattered and warped from the explosion. He didn't think he would ever forget the look in her young eyes from that vid. It was more troubling than the Alliance press vid, shot days after Akuze, where she stood stock still, only opening her mouth to reply to reporters' questions with an eerily emotionless 'yes' or 'no' and a hollow, unseeing gaze fixed somewhere beyond the recording.

He followed her gaze now, which was not hollow, but haunted, yet differently from that of herself as a girl. "I'm sorry we couldn't get you real ones," he finally said.

She sighed, lifting her head before she got a crick in her neck. "I should have tried to order some from Earth. I didn't think of it until it was too late."

He tried to remember all the things he read on the extranet about her traditions, but the source was in his grasp. "Does it really make a difference?"

Her mouth twisted wistfully. "No, I guess not. The thought that counts and all that. It's just a little ridiculous that they're shot glasses. My mom would have had a fit and my dad would have laughed and teased her about it until she started laughing too."

Garrus never heard her speak of her parents, except that one time to explain how old she was when they died. He tried to block the memory of the little girl and the smoldering corpses in the vid. Hesitantly, he ventured in a tone lighter than he felt, "That sounds familiar."

Rachel laughed, almost in disbelief. "You're right, you know. Everyone's worst nightmare except my own. I've become my mother."

She straightened, standing, and leaned her head on his broad shoulder. He held her close, happy to hear a break in her melancholy. He remembered the first time he held her like this; how nervous they both had been, how she was worried he wouldn't want her because of her past and how he told her how long he had loved her. How they eventually- She interrupted his train of thought, poking the source of his reverberated purring in his chest. "Don't get any ideas. That's not on the menu until tomorrow night, either."

"You and your strange rituals," he grumbled affectionately, nuzzling her hair.

"Says the guy with clan markings," she shot back amiably.

"You were the one to tell me to slap on more face paint," he teased.

She jerked her head up suddenly, looking horrified. "Oh- shoot! Don't remind me I said that. I'm sorry! I wanted to blast my brains out for days after that. I have no idea what came pouring out of my mouth when Taylor made it sound like you were dead on Doctor Chakwas' table and I hadn't-"

Garrus cupped her hands in her face. "Rachel."

She blinked several times, but her eyes were red- not from cybernetics- and glistening. "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner."

He shook his head at her, not letting her go. "You really are impossible. You said I was the first dossier you picked up."

She would have nodded, but he was literally holding her gaze. "You were, but it took days to get to Omega and then I had to shoot the sh- breeze with Aria to find out where you were and stop a kid from joining the mercs so he wouldn't get killed and still pose as a merc so I could-" She frowned. "Why are you laughing at me?"

He threw his head back, still rumbling chuckles. He could only think of one way to explain without setting her off, even if her fuse was slightly longer today than most others. "Because there's no one else like you."

She lifted one of the hands that held her face and kissed the palm. "I have to go and make nice with Kelly." She sighed. "And Miranda." And then groaned. "And Jacob."

He looked down at her, stroking her cheek. "It would be nice if they had to do the same."

Her mouth quirked up a bit. "If they refuse my gesture, it's on their head, not mine. I'll have atoned and they'll be judged."

His mandibles flexed in a smirk. "I don't suppose you'd let me encourage them not to accept."

She shook her head at him, scolding, "Don't you dare. My crazy rituals, not yours. Plus, um," she rolled her right shoulder uncomfortably. "I need to email Alenko."

Garrus drew back, appalled, "You already apologised to him!"

Rachel made a face of discontent. "I know, but I never replied to his email and- " She reached up to touch his scarred mandible, "I have to, Garrus."

He ran a hand through her hair once more. "Fine," he grumbled, "But finish your water first."

She drew back, hands on hips. "Hey, who's the Commander around here?"

He levelled a finger at her- a mannerism he picked up from her. "You have a biotic amp now, even if you never use it. You may have told Miranda I was the XO, but she doesn't believe it. If you pass out, she'll be barking orders that no one will pay attention to and I'll have a ship full of crew arguing over who we should airlock first."

She was already reaching for the bottle when she offensively retorted, "I will not pass out!" She started laughing as he spun his yarn of the _Normandy _divided. "All right, all right. I'm drinking it, see? Just don't make me laugh or it'll end up on you."

He waited until she finished the water before he pointed out. "You did before."

Rachel looked confused as she set the empty bottle down. "Did what?"

"Pass out," he accused. She could hear the apprehension in his tone.

"That," she said, giving his shoulder a nudge, "was a concussion. During a battle. Granted, the battle was with the Kodiak, but still."

He drew an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "There really is no one else like you."

Commander Rachel Shepard silently considered the turian who held her; she thought about the bargain she made back on Omega and what she told her parents after she said _Kaddish_ over them. She didn't know if her soul resided with her parents or was brought back with her in Project Lazarus, but with the stubborn tenacity that made her ancestors keep the faith through millennia of persecution- the same unwavering determination that she inherited and somehow managed to retain after death and rebirth- she had to believe her soul was with her again. Even if she despised being brought back as a tool, she had to remember the teachings of her previous life. Her current faith. To accept what she is given and find the faith to carry on. She still had that faith. She would defeat the Reapers, not because she was a tool for Cerberus, the Alliance, or anyone else, but because she was herself. She would stop chasing after death, as death, she thought with a wry inward grin, apparently didn't want her. But someone did want her, and love her. He might be from her previous life, but unlike those she mourned today, he was as alive as she was. She realised then she could find it in herself to forgive Cerberus and not waste this new life. She leaned forward and whispered, simply, her voice unusually thick with a tumult of emotions, "I love you."

Garrus Vakarian looked straight in her eyes as he pressed his forehead against hers. He repeated in a low timbre, "I love you."


End file.
